Project X
by PennySparker
Summary: She wakes up in a room, with no memories. After some experimenting, she finds out she has powers. She clings onto the side of a lift with a boy in it. The place they arrive at has more boys. Some of them seem familiar, somehow. The boys find her and she becomes their companion in this place none of them know how to leave. All she knows is they need to escape and she'll help them.


A/N: Hello everyone, this is my first story written here, and it's for my total, all-time favourite fandom The Maze Runner. I hope you like it and please review, I would love to see how you find it and how i can make it better in future chapters.

~Penny

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She woke with a gasp that rattled her lungs painfully.  
_WhereamIwhattimeisitwhereiseveryone..._ Thoughts swam through her mind like fish in a pond. _What's my name?_ That thought was the only one that stuck, that stayed still while the others swirled, almost teasingly, out of reach.. The answer came to her quickly, as if she'd summoned it and it had obeyed.  
Marie. She shook her head, trying to clear it. _Marie? Huh? I... don't think I like my name; it sounds so... formal_, she thought, frowning. _Maybe... maybe I should change it._ After a minute of thought, she decided on Swift — fierce and not too girlish or prim — then sat up and looked around.

She had been lying on a bed in a dimly lit room, with no one in sight. "Hello?" she called tentatively. There was no reply. _Of course not_, she told herself. _Why would there be an answer? There's no one here._

Standing up, she walked over to a desk by the near wall since there was a mirror set on it and, she wincingly thought, she couldn't remember what she looked like. Her reflection almost startled her.  
Brown hair framed a small face with clear blue eyes set perfectly into it, not too far apart, and not too close. On the table, there was a note. She curious, she picked it up and read it. In neat handwriting it said _WICKED is good._ She flipped it over and read the other side. _WICKED is not good._ The 'D' trailed off, as if the writer had had to trail off at the end of it. She felt a shiver down her spine, but not because of the cold. Who, or what, was WICKED?

Saving the thought for later, she stuffed the note in a pocket of the jeans she was wearing and turned away from the desk. Running her hand through her hair, she felt and drew out a hairpin. Instinctively, she walked over to the door on the other side of the room and stuck the hairpin into the keyhole and picked the lock. _How in the world did I know how to do that?_ The door opened into a corridor. She crept out of the room quietly, not wanting to alert anyone of her escape.

_Escape._

Strangely, something told her that she had been a prisoner in that room, that someone had been keeping her captive in unfamiliar settings. There was light ahead, and she tiptoed to a cage-looking thing in a shaft in another, bigger room. Smaller boxes and containers were already stacked into it. She scurried into the shaft beside the cage...box thing as she heard footsteps and voices coming down the corridor. She didn't want to be seen before she figured everything out; who she was, _where_ she was, and why.

Two men in white rolled a stretcher beside the box and, carrying him up a stepladder, dumped a boy about her own age into it. _Ouch_, she thought sympathetically. That couldn't be fun. One of the men pressed a red button next to the shaft and the box started to move up. She grabbed onto it through two of the holes in the metal mesh and jammed her feet into others. The box slowly gained speed; soon it was zooming through the shaft as she gripped tighter and closed her eyes. Eventually it slowed, then stopped. She opened her eyes. Above her, the ceiling slid open, letting light flood in through the opening, she turned into a spider and scuttled through the wire.  
_Hold on, what did I just do?_

She blinked in surprise at the transformation. had she been able to do that before she woke up, when she had memories? No time to think about it now; voices were coming from outside the hole - for of course she was in a hole now since it opened up ahead, right? She didn't know or care what the voices said, but they were all male voices. Boys, to be exact. The boy who had been in the box with her was helped up, out into the daylight by a blond boy with a strange accent. He seemed... familiar, somehow, but she couldn't quite figure out why. He was as mysterious as her abilities, the white-clad men, and everything else.  
She waited for all the others to leave before she climbed out too, in her normal form. She needed answers, but not from the men in white. Making sure no boy saw her, she ran and hid inside a shed nearby. She could spend the night, at least, in here.

Voices woke her. How long had it been? A whole day? Two? Her eyes snapped open; there were two younger boys - about maybe fourteen? - staring at her around a pile of kitchen supplies. She grabbed them and hauled one headfirst into a box of what the label said was baking paper, then knocked the other one out with a quick right hook. _Whoa. How did I- later. __I can't let them get me!_ That would only spell trouble.  
_  
_The boy who had arrived in the box that she had held onto rushed into the shed, along with the one with the funny accent. She spun and kicked the former in the face before quickly turning to the blond. "What the bloody hell? Another girl? This is turning into a bloody kiddie playgroup," he managed to get out before she attacked, smashing an elbow onto his cheekbone, then turning to leave.  
The first boy grabbed her leg, tripping her and pinning her to the ground. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?" he demanded. Without answering she flipped over so he was on the bottom. "Sorry, gotta run," she said with a smirk as she got up. "You ain't running nowhere," a voice came — three more boys came dashing into the shed. _Uh oh._ Two of them grabbed her arms while the last, a dark-skinned boy who had a grumpy face and an air of authority questioned her. He seemed to be the leader, or the one mostly in charge.

"Now, answer the Greenie's questions; who are you and why are you here?"

She sighed. Might as well. "My name is Swift. I -" "How did you get here?" the dark-skinned boy asked, cutting her off. "I was about to tell you that, idiot. Quit interrupting if you want me to answer. I held onto the side of the box... cage... thingy when it came up with _him_," she replied, jerking her chin at the first boy. He was feeling himself for injuries, as were the three others she'd managed to outfight before the others showed up.

"Might wanna get that checked out," she suggested, motioning towards his face. A bruise was beginning to form on his jaw. He gave her a baleful glare as he rubbed it; she turned back to the leader with a smirk.

"Do you think she's got anything to do with the other girl, Alby?" she heard the first boy ask.

"Hey, Alby, is it?" she put in quickly, before anyone could speak again. The dark-skinned boy nodded curtly. "Do you think you can tell these morons to let me go?" She gestured to the larger boys. Alby frowned, though it looked like he was trying to hide his surprise. "How do you know I can tell anyone to do anything?" he asked suspiciously. "Because you've been asking all the questions and ordering everyone around?" she shot back. "What about letting me go, now? My arms are killing me." Reluctantly Alby nodded to the boys holding her.  
"Come with me," he ordered. "I'm not going anywhere with you," she said indignantly, folding her arms and scowling. "Just come," he hissed irritably. It seemed important and, though she was tempted to refuse just so that he'd get angry, she agreed. "Fine. I'll come. Care to tell me why?" "Later," he replied shortly. The boys she had fought shouldered past her, and she couldn't help a brief flash of triumph as she saw that they all bore signs of the scuffle. She trotted after Alby. _The boy who was in the box is following me_, she noticed. _And so is the other one, the one with the accent_, she thought with a short flash of annoyance. _Can't they leave me alone?_  
Alby stopped in front of a big house-like building. "Call a Gathering," he said to the blond boy. _I wish I could just figure out why he seems so familiar!_ It was like they knew each other, even though they didn't. He nodded and ran off. "This is the Homestead," Alby explained briefly to her. She nodded as she walked through the doors behind him. They entered a big room that had a semicircular row of chairs with a single chair in front. "You sit there," Alby muttered to her, motioning towards the single seat. She did as instructed. After a few minutes, the rows of chairs filled. "This girl," Alby began, gesturing towards her, "Was found in the kitchen supply shed a few minutes ago. She says her name is Swift, and claims to have held onto the side of the Box when Thomas, the Greenie, came up yesterday." _That was yesterday?_ she wondered. _I must've just spent the night there. Well, that explains how they didn't find me until now_, she thought with a shrug to herself. _Boys. Probably too caught up with their egos to check their supplies._ An amused murmur spread throughout the room as Alby mentioned her method of arrival. "No one can do that. She must be lying," called an acne-speckled boy. "Maybe not, maybe she's telling the truth," argued another. Voices clamoured, getting louder and louder until Alby called for order. "We'll take a vote, he said, when the voices had finally all been silenced. Keepers?" A tall Asian guy spoke up. "She seems okay," he said slowly. "But we don't know whether she can be trusted... I'd say give her a few week's trial. See how she shapes up." Next, a black-haired boy who glared at the boy named Thomas, the one who had been in the box with her, gave his opinion. "I say she goes. She's definitely lying her socks off about coming up outside the Box, who knows what else she'll lie about later?" "Excuse me?" she asked angrily. "Who are you to say I'm lying? You don't even know me and you don't seem so trustworthy either," she challenged. Alby turned and gave her a hard stare, which she returned coolly. A few others spoke their thoughts, three to leave, three to stay. Then the blond one's turn came. "Well, she bloody outwitted four of us, not to mention hiding for the whole night and not being noticed by the watchful eye of Frypan. I say..." She stared defiantly back at him. Why did she care if she stayed? She could take care of herself, the fight in the kitchen had confirmed that, and she was sure whatever was out there she could face. "She stays," he said finally. "She could be useful." She scoffed. Useful? No one was going to use her, not in a million years. The black-haired boy opened his mouth to protest, then clearly thought better of it and settled for glaring at her. "So that comes down to staying, then. Congrats, you get to stay." The sarcastic last part was to her. "Thanks, Alby. You'll see how valuable I am eventually," she said with a wink to all the others in general. _I guess I have to make the best of this. Maybe _they'll_ be useful, to me._ A short, pudgy boy, about twelve or thirteen, walked up to her. "Nice to meet you. My name's Chuck. Welcome to the Glade." She smiled. Maybe, just maybe she could make a few friends here. It wasn't as if the place could be totally inhabited by boys.  
Could it?

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A/N: And that's the first chapter! If you liked it, again, let me know in reviews and that's it for now!  
Until next time,

~Penny


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